Hey folks, Harry here with the latest from my DVD PICKS & PEEKS column. Lots of crazy weird horror here this Halloween edition. Hope you enjoy the list, some obscure coolness is here. As always, clicking on the titles or the pics will take you to Amazon where you can learn more on each title, and if you’re intrigued enough – you can purchase the title, and at the same time support this column’s efforts to let you know about the coolness that abounds. Enjoy and have a fun Halloween this week!
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: The Plan

Pretty good. Better than RAZOR, but nowhere near as good as most of the series’ actual episodes. At least to me. Looks great in 1080p, but if you’re a BSG geek – you’ve ordered this already. The one thing that is VASTLY superior over the series are the fx – but then… computers seem to get sharper and sharper with effects. You’ll notice that here!

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

Incredibly profitable mildly amusing junk that apparently works for some segment of the audience.

TINKER BELL AND THE LOST TREASURE

The last Tinker Bell CG film annoyed the shit out of me. I think it was the notion of giving Tink an origin – and a voice. That said, this was much much much better. I put this on while Yoko and I were cleaning for a party – and it absolutely stopped Yoko dead in her tracks. She’s a “Disney Princess Geek” and it hypnotized her. How’d it play for me? Well, it has a story, the graphics are kinda beautiful… and the battle with the rats is kinda scary and downright creepy. If you have a daughter, do not even hesitate in picking this up. They’ll love it.

MONTY PYTHON: ALMOST THE TRUTH

It is my understanding that this is airing on IFC, but I haven’t seen it yet – but it sounds like something I’d like to check out. I’ve always loved Monty Python - Have any of you seen this? Worth picking up?

THE PRISONER: THE COMPLETE SERIES (Blu Ray)

Until I got this set, I’d never sat down and watched the whole series. I’d seen an odd episode here or there, but I never could make sense of it. It seemed they never could keep an actor as Number 2. Well, watching this on Blu-Ray… I get it. Not only that, but earlier tonight I took a look at rough cuts for the first 3 episodes of the new PRISONER. And man. All the charm, wit, style, uniqueness and power seem to be completely drained out of it. That said, the new series doesn’t seem to be doing anything like the story we have here. There was something that Number 2 was seemingly searching for – in this new show – it seems they might be in a different dimension. But the original show was just flatly brilliant. McGoohan played #6 with a flair, a dashing derring do. You see him thinking, analyzing, looking for weaknesses and opportunities. It is brilliant. Here’s the special features:
Newly remixed 5.1 surround sound for all 17 episodes (in addition to the original mono tracks). 'Don’t Knock Yourself Out': Feature-length documentary chronicling the production of THE PRISONER, told by those involved in its creation; Two Brand-New Featurettes: 'The Pink Prisoner' and 'You Make Sure it Fits!'; Promo for AMC’s THE PRISONER Miniseries; Newly restored original edit of 'Arrival' with an optional music-only soundtrack featuring Wilfred Josephs’ complete and abandoned score; Original edit of 'The Chimes of Big Ben'; Production crew audio commentaries on seven episodes; Trailers for all episodes; Archive textless material, including the title sequence with clean ! themes by Ron Grainer, Wilfred Josephs and Robert Farnon; Commercial break bumpers; Image Archive with over 1200 stills; Production Paperwork Archive, featuring scripts, call sheets and press releases

ORPHAN

If you like Evil Children films… and that’s such a great genre… then you’ll probably like this film even if it does get a bit outlandish and silly. But, I do like evil children. I actually prefer the special feature on EVIL CHILDREN in cinema. Fun little featurette.

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (Blu Ray)

This could be a leading indicator of the end of the world… Cuz not only do we have NIGHT OF THE CREEPS on home video, but BLU RAY!!! And it is the first thing I want to get tomorrow. I didn’t get sent a copy to preview for y’all… but this is the Blu Ray Horror film that I want to watch before Halloween this year! Yippee! Badass Tom Atkins!!! If you buy 1 horror film on Blu Ray this season – this is the horror film to buy!!! Wonderful film!

STARGATE 15th Anniversary (Blu Ray)

I didn’t get sent this one either. And I wondered if they were just repackaging the title, cuz this is already out on Blu, but it seems they have done a much better job on this Blu. There’s both the director’s cut and the original theatrical cut. Lossless Audio. There’s an audio commentary by Emmerich & Devlin. 3 new featurettes and more. So if you love STARGATE this is a better disc than what you got before. And yes, they do suck for putting out an inferior disc to begin with.

Z (Criterion Collection)

Academy Award winner in 1970’s Best Foreign Film category, Costa-Gavras’ Z is just a brilliant way to kick off a splurge of 70’s Brilliant Film watching – and Criterion did a great job with this DVD. I just wish it were a Blu Ray. One of the greatest Political Thrillers of all time. Right there with ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, PARALLAX VIEW, 3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR and their like. Brilliant at every level. Here’s what Criterion has put together as a package for this film:
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
• Audio commentary featuring film historian Peter Cowie
• New interviews with Costa-Gavras and Coutard
• Archival interviews with Costa-Gavras; producer-actor Jacques Perrin; actors Yves Montand, Irène Papas, and Jean-Louis Trintignant; and Vassilis Vassilikos, author of the book Z
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Armond White

Luis Bunuel’s DEATH IN THE GARDEN

I love 53 year old films that are absolutely brand new to me. This is an excellent double feature for that WAGES OF FEAR Criterion Blu Ray you have. It isn’t as great as that film. In fact it isn’t near that level, but watching it first, it’s a great lead in to that South American world and look. This involves mining and being pursued through a jungle. Contrary to the cover, this isn’t a black and white film, but a lovely color film. Yes, it is subtitled. I was quite happy with this film.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970’s Vol. 2

Same thing – only from the Seventies. This is my childhood – and yes, I’m nostalgic for it. Here’s what you get:
Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch: Keep Your Keeper
New Adventures of Gilligan: Off Limits
Sea Lab 2020: Deep Threat
Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan: The Mardi Gras Caper
Shazzan: The Living Island / Master of the Thieves
Yogi's Gang: Mr. Bigot
Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour: For Scent-Imental Reasons/Stop, Look and Hasten, Hare-Way to the Stars/Duck! Rabbit, Duck!
Valley of the Dinosaurs: Forbidden Fruit
Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape; Show #1 No Way Stowaway / That Was No Idol… / The Ski Bunny / The All American Ape / Stay Awake Or Else
Banana Splits Adventure Hour: Joning the Knights/The littlest Musketeer/"Danger Island"
Inch High Private Eye: Diamonds are a Crook's Best Friend
New Adventures of Batman and Robin: Sweet Joke on Gotham City

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: The Second Season

You want a Halloween Marathon? You could do a lot worse than to just work your way through the Second Season of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE. This was my contemporary horror series to my High School years. It came on at like 2am and sometimes it gave me some pretty serious nightmares. And I had seen most badass horror films available at that time. Its just, this series had great fun actors, and it was adapted from a lot of great material. So if you’re like me, this reminds you of the heyday of 80s horror. If you were born after this –you totally need to check it out!

THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE (Blu Ray)

I’d never heard of this title, but I had seen the film, under its other title… LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE. This film is slow, but it is atmospheric, creepy and the zombies… they’re very stark and impressionistically harrowing. Spanish director Jorge Grau gets it. He gets that Zombies are scary, because they’re the living dead. And they’re coming for YOU. And that’s unnatural and creepy. And then there’s just the little fact that this thing is gorgeous on Blu Ray. Spanish Horror film blood on Blu Ray has never been so richly red. I love that we can see films like this one on Blu.

BLACK DEVIL DOLL

I don’t have this, don’t know anything about it, but look at that box. Read all that stuff. But dammit… I want you to look at this NSFW trailer:

Doesn’t that look like the greatest fucking thing on planet Earth? This could be the pinnacle of civilization! Or there's the unrated totally unsafe for work 720p version of the trailer: Here!!!

LOVECRAFT: FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN (Blu Ray)

A very well made Documentary on the life of HP Lovecraft with folks like Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon chiming in. The DVD is currently out of stock at Amazon, but for those that lovers of Lovecraft this is something to educate your friends with – and you’ll enjoy it too.

FEAR(S) OF THE DARK

Want Arty Fears this Halloween? Well, FEAR(S) OF THE DARK is probably what you’d want of this week’s releases. I’m fond of all the segments, but frankly… CHARLES BURNS’ segment is something of a revelation. Its so good. So so soooo good. Burns’ illustration style in animation form is like a nightmare of its own. I love it. And the Dogs. Jesus. The Dogs are scary as fuck. Love this.

THE ASPHYX

A really great horror film. 2.35:1 as shot by David Lean’s god like cinematographer, Freddie Young. This isn’t in your face horror, it’s intellectual, thought provoking and subtly fearful film. Saw this ages ago and it was missing a good 10 minutes and was Full Screen VHS. This was a vast improvement. Remastered and gorgeous. Wonderful horror film from the 70s. Beloved by the older horror loving crowd. You deserve to find out why.

NIGHT OF DEATH!

An early Eighties French Horror film with a performance by Michel Flavius that you will not soon forget. Then there’s the naked form of Charlotte De Turckeim – which is lovingly transferred to DVD. Very few people know about this film, till this release. But if you like BUBBA HO-TEP and Old Folks Home Horror…. And Paul Bartel Black Humor… you’ll dig the shit out of this. It surprised me.

JIN WON KIM’S THE BUTCHER

Ok, I get it. You want crazy ass Asian Horror for Halloween, well this week’s list has that too! But if you want to see a Korean horror film that is as gorey and disturbing as the French mastergorepiece INSIDE and the bugnuts beautifully fucked up MARTYRS – then this may be for you. This isn’t just a gore fest though, it is something that wants to curl it’s way between your ears and fuck with your brain – and it does that quite effectively… like most Korean films I have seen.

EVIL FACE

Ok – so Klaus Kinski plays a medical student who is in love with a formerly beautiful woman whose face got all kinds of fucked up. He’s trying to give her beauty back by grafting beautiful flesh from other beautiful women onto her face. Yeah. You want to see this too!

HANNA D: THE GIRL FROM VONDEL PARK

Ok… So you want something horrifying that isn’t a blood and guts fare. You also don’t want it to typify any typical horror genre. Well, I believe I have a treat for those of you that seek extreme exploitation – that also serves as a cautionary tale. This is an incredibly fucked up awesome movie from the director of one of the weirdest most awesome fucked up movies that I have ever seen… LEGEND OF THE WOLF WOMAN! HANNA D is a young daughter of a dried up alcoholic Amsterdam whore. The opening scene has her in a school girl uniform in a private compartment on a train, being fetishistically pimped for peep shows to different types of perverts. Yes, you see pussy. You also see containers of drugs pulled from assholes… and then people inject the drugs from up people’s cornholes. This is CRAZY stuff. When you see where these junkie whores INJECT themselves… you’ll scream. Seriously. It’s squirm and scream. I’m very proud to own this fucked up film.

That’s it for this week. Next week we kick off November with: G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, FOOD, INC… THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 remake, Season 1 of THE CLONE WARS. WATCHMEN: THE ULTIMATE CUT on Blu Ray, Disney’s ZORRO – season 1 & 2, NORTH BY NORTHWEST on Blu Ray, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE on Blu Ray, The final season of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, FORREST GUMP (Blu Ray), The brilliant Alastair Sim A CHRISTMAS CAROL on Blu Ray, WINGS OF DESIRE on Criterion Blu Ray, LOVE ACTUALLY on Blu, ROCKY: THE UNDISPUTED COLLECTION Blu Ray, Final season of FRAGGLE ROCK, G.I. JOE RESOLUTE, THE DEAD, I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER, Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics Vol. 1, Ruby-Spears animated SUPERMAN, HOWARD’S END on Blu, The Claudette Colbert Collection, THE SHIELD: Complete Series, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION Blu Ray, UNMISTAKEN CHILD, Complete FRAGGLE ROCK, Almodovar’s LAW OF DESIRE, the complete MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series, MATADOR, THE MEN and more!

or you're making some reference that's sailing way above my head w/r/t Peter Sarsgaard being in TRUE BLOOD? What are you trying to do, get the growing legion of Alexander Skarsgård lovers to post here in this talkb...fuck you, it worked!

...to me that Roger Ebert does not actually watch every film he reviews. Don't believe me? Go to his site, read his review, then tell me he actually saw the film. I'm not talking about his subjective opinion of it, I'm talking about his description of the plot. It's simply inconceivable that someone sat in that theater, paid any attention whatsoever, and then wrote that review. I call shenanigans.

is GREAT! Watched all six hours on Sunday. Part 1 covers their childhoods, how they met, early TV work, Part 2 is about the show, Part 3 are personal observations about each other, the dynamics of the group, and Graham's alcoholism, Part 4 covers the making of the Holy Grail, Part 5 is the making of and the controversy surrounding the release of Life of Brian (GREAT STUFF!!), and Part 6 covers the Hollywood Bowl and The Meaning of Life. Fascinating, hysterically funny, and totally engrossing.

aka BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL? It's a shot-on-video 80s shitter that literally could never be remade to recapture the insanity that obviously fuelled the making of it. This remake looks like a piece of shit by comparison - lacking the total ineptitude of the original, they go for stupid jive-cussing, fake pornstar titties and some stupid murder plot. Seriously - stay well away from this new thing and track down a copy/torrent of Chester N. Turner's opus BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL. It will change your life, I guarantee it. I've seen it three times and I've cried every time from how badly it fucks my brain.

I saw this trailer some months ago and having endured the original BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL, there is no way I would ever subject myself to such outright shit ever agin. I truly enjoy bad movies, but there is a limit and the original went way beyond my personal ability to tolerate a no-talent-involved anti-movie, and my tolerance for such is considerable. Cavet emptor.

Why do blu-ray editions of movies always use the most Photoshop-tastic "art" for the cover? Seriously almost every blu-ray comes out with different cover art than the DVD, and the blu-ray almost always looks fucking FUGLY compared to the DVD and especially compared to the original poster art. On this page just look at the box art for Night of the Creeps, then compare it to this poster: http://www.impawards.com/1986/night_of_the_creeps_ver1.html
or those seen here: http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_poster/night_of_the_creeps_1986.htm

I forgot that its coming out now! 50's VistaVision in 1080p! Bernard Herrman's score in pure digital! One of Hitchcock's best! Don't know if Albert Whitlock did the matte work, but since it is an MGM production and Whitlock did a lot of matte work for Hitchcock in his later pictures, I wonder if Whitlock did the wonderful matte work.

just saw this last night, i thought it was pretty funny and i didnt really like the first two that much. i'm not surprised harry didnt like it because on good ol AICN, if its not pixar then it cant be good. even though (animation quality aside) this was better than most of pixar's movies..uh oh, i just committed blasphemy. :P

I know...I found Kung Fu Panda's animation (sp on BluRay) to be astounding, and the voice work and story to be more enjoyable (although yes, more predictable.."Be yourself, love yourself, yada yada") than the much loved Wall E.

Highly recommended, and I’m not even a die-hard Python fan (As evidenced by the fact that I actually forgot Gilliam was part of the troupe). Particularly interesting were the episodes focused on the films (one entire episode each for the Holy Grail and Life of Brian). They discuss how Gilliam and Jones struggled to work together as co-directors.

does indeed look amazing. had peopel over to watch it around xmas and they were all floored by the picture quality and this was on an old DLP television. it looks even greater on my LCD. as for Ice Age 3, Simon Pegg was pretty funny even before i realized it was him. lol

The original Black Devil Doll From Hell was a piece of CRAP! Everything about it fell flat from the yammering puppet to the plot itself. So who cares if it was ripped off? It needed to be ripped off and made better. Which was done I might add, very nicely indeed.
The new Black Devil Doll, it's something special, it actually has a sense of humor and runs with it! I saw it twice during it theatrical run and I have watched the dvd several times already. It is a new cult classic!

You're right, all this time I've thought they were related.
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I'm sure I read back when GARDEN STATE was released that Peter was Stellen's son (I assumed he changed his surname either to distance himself from his father's career in some small way, or to make it easier to pronounce).
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Thanks for the correction.

the original, was one of the most glorious blind rental items my friends and I made back in the early 90's...some of us nearly passed out laughing so hard. I can't abide this played-for-laughs remake, when the original was so fucking funny played straight. <br>
And for fans of the original, try tracking down Chester N. Turner's follow-up masterpiece, TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE. It nearly rises to BDDFH-levels of ineptitude/brilliance.

Dammit, have to buy another Prisoner box set, but worth it if its in 5.1. Ah, to have it sound like Rover is in the room with you! Surprised you didn't get into this show until recently, Harry...damn. This was a classic. As for Monty Python documentary, EXCELLENT! Lots of bizarre facts, love how they said that Holy Grail was financed by Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and how at the Hollywood Bowl performance the audience smoked weed nonstop.

Black Devil Doll From Hell (1984) is BAD. Probably the worst film ever made. It can barely be called a film and it makes Ed Wood's worst films look like Citizen Kane. For some fanboys out there its entertaining on a "so bad its good" level I suppose.
But this new Black Devil Doll is really well made, its hilarious, very sleazy, violent, and the most fun I have had in a theater in years.
Unfortunatley for you the theatrical shit is over and you will have to settle for DVD, but I suggest you netflix it or something, its a must for any cult/exploitation fan.
In the end, you may like both films, for different reasons, but you shouldn't sell this new one short without seeing it.
-RayRay

This is way back in the talkback but I don't get your problem with the Ebert review. I just read it and he's accurately describing the movie from what I remember, just dancing around the specifics so he doesn't spoil it. What did you think he was wrong about?<p>
I'm glad he liked it too. I had no interest in it until somebody gave away the twist to me, which I thought was a hilariously crazy one. So that makes it fun, but the movie as a whole is actually smarter and better than I expected.

sounds good...I'll check out the new one. There does seem to be a lot of good word of mouth on it. Just the idea seemed blasphemous to me...like remaking PLAN 9 but doing it very campy and strictly for laughs....ugh. I find sincerely-made bad movies 100% funnier than most mainstream comedies, or those that are mockingly trying to force the so-bad-its-good aesthetic.

Don't judge the new one from its trailer. Trust me, its the furthest thing from a "mainstream comedy", this is strictly underground, Out of all of my friends only one of them did not like it, and I lost all respect for him and refuse to speak to him again!
-RayRay

He's my favorite director of ALL TIME, I just watched the doc on the wonderful Criterion release of The Exterminating Angel, and it's quite possible the best doc they have ever done, now that's my pick for Halloween, along with The Golden Age/ Un Chien Andalou.

What possible joke about a doll that has sex and kills people could be done that wasn't just shown in that 4 minute expanse? I got the joke, I think I'm good.
Also, sucks about that Darkside music. Gotta hate when they can't get the rights.
Will the day ever come when we can get the Wonderyears on DVD with original music? Probably not, but what a day, eh?

I can't believe that there hasn't been a single writer on this site to talk about/review Saw VI. I get that a lot of people are finding this series tired/tedious but to ignore it completely seems rude. Not only to readers of the site who would like to discuss/read about the film but to the phenomenon itself. This is a geek site and Saw is the most successful franchise in the history of film. Love it or loath it it deserved to be discussed. Doesn't it?

"Incredibly profitable mildly amusing junk that apparently works for some segment of the audience."<p> Umm harry, isn't this supposed to be YOUR picks? Then why the fuck did you add a film yopu clearly don't like?

"Saw is the most successful franchise in the history of film." I realize that they are very cheap to produce, and the cost to profit ratio is high, but the Bonds and Potters may have to argue the point.

Now those are challenges I must accept. As soon as I had read your posts I tracked them both down via the one site that never lets me down when it comes to astounding, mind-boggling shit like that.
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Being a glutton for cinematic punishment I'm looking forward to watching the movies ASAP.
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Thanks for the tips!

Ice Age 3 was pretty good, not as good as 2, but probably the best animated movie this year. Monsters vs Aliens was stupid crap and while UP was good, the Squirel parts in Ice Age 3 own both of those movies hands down.

How could talkbackers sustain hilarious flame wars if people had the option of erasing their derided posts?
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Might as well ask to rip out and shit on the heart and soul of talkback.
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Post-editing is for losers!

instead of waiting. i dont have a bluray anyway but those Prisoner extras look awesome. I don't double dip anyway. (very rare for me so unlikely i'll ever see those extras.) As to Python, already winging it's way to me from deepdiscountDVD for a measly 15 bucks as is The Plan. My mailbox will be very happy.

...used talkbacks? That tells you something.<P>Not to make too much of it, but talkback as it is has a certain risk, a gladiatorial element. There's a little thrill when you hit post...am I flaming the right guy? If I'm calling him or her a moron did I spell everything correctly? How exactly do you spell "twatwaffle"?<P>If you could go back and change things I would lose all interest.

Be warned...they're both astoundingly painful to watch. I would personally rate QUADEAD ZONE as the more difficult one (it's a horror anthology, meaning it doesn't even have a coherent plot to keep you going, and if anything the production values and acting are *worse* than BDDFH), but BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL has a special place in my heart. If only a film print existed, so I could see it in a movie theatre. Example of its soul-killing nature: the movie's like 72 minutes long, 15 minutes of which is opening and closing credits. But it still feels like three hours or more. The music...OHHHHH the music...you'll never look at a Casiotone keyboard the same way again.

I'd like an edit function, and those guys are right that others have had it for over a decade - but it hasn't had the slightest impact on either first posters or raging morons.
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But it should be reduced to like a one-minute window, which isn't exactly hard to do. That'll get rid of revisionist history and those fuckers who swore up and down that they'd never watch Transformers 2 then somehow flamed the movie they supposedly haven't seen when the thing was released. It'll take care of hitting the enter button by mistake or multi-post stupidity though. Everyone would be happy! AND angry!!
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The only downside I can see is that we wouldn't get to laugh at first-posters that post 4th or 6th... so there's that.

"I know it! I know it!" Peter Sellers last line in "I Love You Alice B. Toklas". A comedic look at how the hippy movement of the sixties was nothing but a sea of lazy, drug addicts and promiscuous whores...yet somewhere in that mess of a movement, there had to be some meaning in there, yet no one actually discovered it. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing, other than I just finished watching this movie.

If your girlfriend fucks another dude on your living room floor and tells you, "Hey, man, don't get all uptight. I wanna be free. You're treating me like a possession," it's a bad thing. Well, the be fair, she doesn't fuck the man on Peter Sellers' floor...she paints his bareback, but it's clearly leading there, and when Sellers asks her why, she says, "Because I like him." He says, "What about me?" "I like you, too." "Is there anyone you don't like?" LOL <p> You can be open sexually without being a whore or a lover of whores. It's more about common courtesy. Free love just doesn't work in modern society. Only in cults...like the Manson family...or Mormon ranches.

was that it got commodified by the capitalist society just like everything in America. Thats how they beat you. With cultural hegemony. They don't oppress you or try to eliminate you they just absorb you attach a price tag to your ass and try to sell you. Free love becomes a coca cola commercial. Punk turns into Green Day.

cuz some 80's titles don't justify the transfer, but Night Of The Creeps is worth a purchase at least on standard DVD. In no small part to Tom "thrill me" Adkins. If you can get over the 80's fashions, its more fun than the highly touted Trick R Treat that was praised up and down on this site.

It's a decent doc, but much, if not almost all, of the information has already been out there, either in the great book "The Pythons Autobiography by the Pythons" or their famous interview from the Aspen comedy festival. If you haven't seen/read either of those, its a great watch.

Why was the release of Virtuality on DVD completely under my radar? I can't remember the last time I walked into a store and was surprised to see a DVD had been released that I wasn't expecting. Also surprised I never saw it mentioned on this website.

I liked Python when I was a kid, wasn't a super-obsessive-fan, but this is an excellent doc. Great to see the history laid out and the members speaking candidly about it all. Looked great on IFC HD, too.

Just got NOTC and Trick R Treat (along with The Gate and original Stepfather) on DVD from amazon for a nice Halloween marathon. I can atest for the other films (yeah, I admit I enjoyed The Gate) but bought Trick R Treat sight unseen.

...i totally agree! it's like the entire film community ignores the entire Saw series just because they don't screen them for the press. they fail to understand that it's not because the film is shit(although people are allowed to dislike them) but that in this know-it-all media world we all live in now it's nice to see a Big film without knowing exactly what happens for months in advance. i enjoy the tradition of going to see these films and the dis-owning of them by the geek world(except fangoria obviously) is really annoying.

I think Harry's comments reflect more of a dissatisfaction with the studio rather than the film. Ice Age 3 was a lot of fun and a good family film. Gone are the days of AICN being impartial, well as much as they ever were. I'm hoping th focus gets back on the films and less on what studios support AICN and use it for DVD blurbs. That is a sign of maturity.

Getting back to you late..ooops. I hope you liked Trick R Treat. My expectations were biased too high from all the praise that Harry and the boys piled on it. I'd rather pick up a season of Tales From The Crypt that you can find sometimes on the cheap...BTW, doesn't Terry O'Quinn just ROCK in the Stepfather? "Who am I this time" indeed...

It was kind of a cheap slasher, but I remember enjoying it in the theater when it came out. I miss the days when low budget horror films would get theatrical releases. I never would have seen those cheap Halloween sequels from the late 80s if they had been released DTV. Not saying they were great, but seeing them with an enthusiastic audience was fun.